Opera CEO Not Interested in Facebook Take Over

Receive the latest press-here updates in your inbox

Fresh off its IPO and its $1 billion Instagram inquisition, Facebook has reportedly been interested in acquiring browser Opera for its long-rumored phone.

Opera CEO Lars Boilesen responded to the rumors Thursday with a strong no comment but not without saying he hopes to keep the his company and his browser out of anybody's clutches.

"This is not the first rumor about Opera. Our plan is too stay independent," Boilesen told Bloomberg's Emily Chang.

Facebook has been rumored to be interested in taking over Opera to make it a featured browser on a smartphone made and dedicated for the social network.

Opera has been one of the more successful mobile browsers in the market and the company is run independently of any major player, unlike other browsers such as Chrome, Safari and Bing.

When pushed on whether he had any advice for Facebook, which has admitted it has struggled to make inroads in the mobile arena, Boilesen again declined to comment but said that his company is open to working with any company and it already does.

"We work with all the major Internet companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Google," Boilesen said.